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So I had a interesting conversation with a good friend of mine a little while ago and she said that we're such good friends and we connect so well because we're both hippies at heart. And that as well as the thread about hip forums got me thinking, what exactly is a hippie in this modern day and age?

I have a lot of friends (almost all girls) subscribing to this culture and claiming that they are hippies. However, I don't think I've ever seen someone wear tie-dye and be serious, I have no idea what pitualie smells like, and I don't really like the Grateful Dead (blasphemy on this site I know).

I do believe in peace and love, I do think we're all one, I do try to help people with their problems, and I do a lot of psychedelic drugs.

However, I dress like a normal individual from my neighborhood. I regularly take showers and brush my teeth. I don't have dread locks. And I can see the need for violence.

I think I subscribe to a lot of the morals of the hippie culture but as far as their uniforms and general approach to life, I can't say I subscribe. I don't subscribe to modern hippie organizations such as PETA or Greenpeace because I think they're approach to today's world and today's politics is wrong to get anything accomplished. I do believe in organzations such as the ACLU and other Civil Liberty groups.

I'm calling out all the stereotypical things I know about hippies. So what the hell is a modern hippie?

I wish you'd post this in OTD cuz I think the replies would make me laugh.

--------------------Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.

--------------------Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.

Hippie (or sometimes "hippy") is a term originally used to describe some of the rebellious youth of the 1960s and 1970s.

Though not a cohesive cultural movement with manifestos and leaders, hippies expressed their desire for change with communal or nomadic lifestyles, by renouncing corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, by embracing aspects of non-traditional religious cultures, and with criticism of Western middle class values. Criticism included the views that the goverment was paternalistic, corporate industry was greedy and domineering, traditional morals were askew, and war was inhumane. The structures and institutions they rejected came to be called the establishment.

"Hippie" is also used, in a derogatory sense, to describe long-haired unkempt drug users, regardless of their socio-political beliefs.

In the 1940s and 1950s the terms "hipster" and "beatnik" came into usage by the American beat generation to describe jazz and swing music performers, and evolved to also describe the bohemian-like counterculture that formed around the art of the time.

The 1960s hippie culture evolved from the beat culture.

On the East coast of the U.S., in Greenwich Village, young counterculture advocates were called, and referred to themselves as "hips". To be "hip" meant at that time, "to be in the know". Young disaffected youth from the suburbs of New York City flocked to the Village in their oldest clothes, to fit into the counterculture movement, the coffee houses, etc. Radio station WBAI was the first media outlet to use the term "hippie" to describe the poorly-dressed middle class youths as a pejorative term originally meaning "hip wannabes".

September 6, 1965, marked the first San Francisco newspaper story, by Michael Fellon, that used the word "hippie" to refer to younger bohemians. The name did not catch on in mass media until almost two years later.

Hippie action in the San Francisco area, particularly the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, centered around the Diggers, a guerilla street theater group that combined spontaneous street theater, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda of creating a "free city". The San Francisco Diggers grew from two radical traditions thriving in the area in the mid-1960s: the bohemian/underground art/theater scene, and the new left/civil rights/peace movement.

Los Angeles also had a vibrant hippie scene in the mid-'60s, arising from a combination of the L.A. beat scene centered around Venice and its coffeehouses, which spawned the Doors, and the Sunset Strip, the quintessential L.A. hippie gathering area, with its seminal rock clubs, such as the Whisky-a-Go-Go, and the Troubadour just down the hill. The Strip was also the location of the actual protest referred to in the Buffalo Springfiled's early hippie anthem of 1966, For What It's Worth.

Summer 1967 in Haight-Ashbury became known as the "Summer of Love" as young people gathered (75,000 by police estimates) and shared the new culture of, music, drugs, and rebellion. However, the Diggers felt co-opted by media attention and interpretation, and at the end of the summer held a Death of Hippie parade.

The hippie movement reached its height in the late 1960s, as evidenced by the July 7, 1967 issue of TIME magazine, which had for its cover story: The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture.

Because many hippies wore flowers in their hair and gave flowers to people, they are also called "flower children".

Hippies often participated in peace movements, including peace marches such as the USA marches on Washington and civil rights marches, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations including the 1968 Democratic Convention. Yippies represented a highly politically active sub-group.

Though by 2005 standards, they were prone to sexism, the culture rapidly embraced feminism and egalitarian principles.

Though hippies embodied a counterculture movement, early hippies were not particularly tolerant of homosexuality. Acceptance of homosexuality grew with the culture.

Hippie political expression also took the form of "dropping out" of society to implement the changes they sought. The back to the land movement, cooperative business enterprises, alternative energy, free press movement, and organic farming embraced by hippies were all political in nature at their start.

any hippies participated in recreational drug use, particularly marijuana, hashish, and hallucinogens such as LSD and Psilocybin. Some hippies prize marijuana for its iconoclastic, illicit nature, as well as for its psychopharmaceutical effects. Although many hippies did not use drugs, drug use is a trait ascribed to hippies.

Drugs were, and still are, controversially considered a central theme in hippie culture.

Many people recall that hippies did not smoke tobacco cigarettes, and considered tobacco dangerous, but photographs from the time shows many hippies smoking cigarettes.

By 1970, much of the hippie style, but little of its substance, had passed into mainstream culture. The media lost interest in the subculture. However, many hippies made, and continue to maintain, long-term commitments to the lifestyle. Because hippies have avoided publicity since the Summer of Love/Woodstock era, a myth arose that they no longer exist. As of 2005, hippies are found in bohemian, open-minded enclaves around the world, as wanderers following the bands they love. Since the early 1970s, many rendevous annually at Rainbow Gatherings to celebrate and pray for peace. Others gather at meetings and festivals celebrating life and love, such as the Peace Fest (http://www.PeaceFest2005.tk).

Another legacy of the hippie generation is Woodstock. A memorable year at Woodstock was in 1969. In this year,Jimmi Hendrix "woke-up" the crowd with his un-ethical rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. He played the song in the wrong key, sitting down, and high. The high part probably isn't a rule, but it made it sound cooler than any rendition ever heard.

Longer hair and fuller beards than current fashion. African-Americans (and a caucasians with natty hair) associated with the 1960s counterculture (and parallel civil rights movement) wore their hair in afros. Some people find the longer hair offensive. They believe it is unhygienic, frivolous, or feminine; or offensive because it violates traditional cultural expectations. (When Hair moved from off-Broadway to a large Broadway theater in 1968, the hippie counterculture was already diversifying and fleeing traditional urban settings.) Bright-colored clothing, and unusual styles, such as bell-bottom pants, tie-dyed garments, peasant blouses, and Indian-inspired clothing. Listening to certain styles of music; psychedelic rock such as Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, blues such as Janis Joplin, soulful funk like Sly & The Family Stone, and ZZ Top and jam bands like the Grateful Dead. Modern jam band counterparts are groups like Phish, String Cheese Incident, moe., the Black Crowes, or Goa trance music. Performing music casually, often with guitars, in friends' homes, or for free at outdoor fairs such as San Francisco's legendary "Human Be-In" of January 1967, Woodstock, or contemporary gatherings like Burning Man festival. Free love (See also: Sexual revolution). Communal living Incense

Quote:Trainwreck said:You're a "neo-hippe". That's what I picture myself as. It's like a modern day hippie, they're are a lot of similarities and just as many differences. But the spirit is still the same.

a label. See, the thing about labels is that once you attach or identify with that label, your ego will feel the need to defend. this is too much clutter for the mind. It seems today that being a hippy has a lot more to deal with looks than ideas. A large part of this has to deal with marketing, as "the machine" has incorporated hippy clothing and looks to make a profit. the same can be said for punks, goths, ravers...etc. its good to recognize these labels and not get attached to them. its easier and cheaper

--------------------Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.---senior doobie

--------------------Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.